The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.

"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

The author of the argument failed to convince us that new dormitories are ought to be built in the Buckingham college. The argument, as it stands, is based on questionable assumptions and a faulty line of reasoning. As a result, these render the argument unconvincing and over-simplistic.

First, the author bases his conclusion on poor evidence. Furthermore, he does not take into account the fact that other factors could have a voice in issues mentioned. First of all, the author concludes based on current trends of growing enrollment. At first it may sound convincing but it is not. Other factors could have played a role in such issue. Simply put, one cannot solely rely on current trends due to the fact that they might be based on wrong data. What are those trends based on? On what period of time is the trend basing its data? Is it enough to convince the reader that the college is ought to budget construction of new dormitories? Not to mention the mere fact that even if the trend had been based on a sufficient amount of time of research and reliable reports, it would have still been a moot point to predict the future. Under no circumstances, can a person predict upcoming events in the future. To elaborate, so many things, including economic conditions and the tendency of the youth to attend college could change in 50 years. Therefore, allotting a fair amount of budget for building new dormitories would not make sense. If the arguer had mentioned the information provided above and supplied more clarification, the argument would have been consolidated.

Lastly, the author uses vague terms to support his assertion: First, the author states that the college should build “a number of” new dormitories; second, the arguer mentions that the enrollment is “growing”; lastly, the author says that the average rent has “risen” in recent years. All these statements and terms are vague and need further clarification. What does the author mean by a number of new dormitories? Does it mean doubling the current number or just building another one? In addition, the author does not provide any information regarding the growth in enrollment. What if the growth is only one new student each year? Then it would not be convincing to allot a huge amount of budget for new dormitories. At last, the arguer says that the rent has risen, but does not provide any further clarification about the extent to which the rent has risen. Simply put, other expenses could have decreased in the past few years, a fact that the neither the author nor the reader are not aware of. If the arguer had clarified more, the argument would have been strengthened.

To conclude, based on substantial assumptions and poor evidence, the arguer’s reasoning failed to provide concrete support for his/her conclusion. If the argument had included the items discussed, it would have been more thorough and convincing.

Votes
Average: 5 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 502, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...What are those trends based on? On what period of time is the trend basing its data? Is it eno...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 697, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'allotting'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'convince' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: allotting
...h year? Then it would not be convincing to allot a huge amount of budget for new dormito...
^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, lastly, may, regarding, second, so, still, then, therefore, in addition, as a result, first of all

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2458.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 490.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01632653061 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70488508055 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89190514516 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477551020408 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 746.1 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Interrogative: 3.0 0.471057884232 637% => Less interrogative sentences wanted.
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.221174745 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 84.7586206897 119.503703932 71% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8965517241 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.37931034483 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.178402812984 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0406614095658 0.0743258471296 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0490144124839 0.0701772020484 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0990477821643 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0489964221795 0.0628817314937 78% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.7 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.54 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK

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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.